Gradient goodness

I'm still not feeling 100%, so I've been wasting spending time online, just surfing around. That wears thin very quickly, so this afternoon I decided to flip through one of my recent book purchases, Photocraft by Susan Tuttle and Christy Hydeck. It's a visually appealing book full of mixed-media photography projects as well as purely digital projects. If you are not a novice digital artist, you will likely find much of the information in the book is familiar. Don't let that immediately turn you off though; give it a chance. For example, I was intrigued by their use of Photoshop's Gradient Fill feature. I always say that if I can learn one new thing from a book or a magazine or a class, that makes the purchase worthwhile.

I decided to try their technique on a photo of a small tabletop herb garden I captured last fall in Savannah's Back in the Day Bakery. Following their instructions, I boosted both the saturation and the contrast in the image. I then went on to do my own thing, applying a poster effect and then a little sharpening, before returning to their directions. Both the colour and the angle of the Fill were my own decisions, based on the photo. I'm quite pleased with the results, especially considering this was only an experiment.

Using a Gradient Fill Adjustment Layer has never been part of my regular repertoire and I am so pleased to now have something new to try when messing about with my photographs. So, was Photocraft a worthwhile purchase for me? Absolutely.